Friday, May 12

[HH3os] The Broke Jewels Can Wait 2 Taste trio

(1st round match-up 21 of 27)

BACK AT IT AGAIN, but mailing the fuck out of this one because
it is an uninspiring grey day, and though this was a promising batch of
artists, idk, maybe I’m flirting with depression again, but nothing really
stoked my internal heart fires here.

Vince Staples – Hell Can Wait

(released October 7, 2014; #20 on 2014 Pitchfork Albums of
the Year list)

Vince Staples is one of the more Impressive Young Men of
rap. You read an interview with Vince Staples and it’s hard not to be impressed
by his wide-angled world view, with stereotypical “old soul” wisdom well beyond
his youth. His debut EP (of which this is) moves fast, and to be honest, is
fuckin’ banging as shit. The beats are thick bass murky darkness, like all
great darkside L.A. beats should sound, making you feel as though you are
sherming with Damon Wayans in the shitty van at the beginning of Colors. (That’s
a corny ass analogy, rather pitchfork-like even, but seriously man, I got no
way of truly understanding how to describe how that type of thump bass, other
than ‘80s era van riding, paintjob candy and rust flake, roller skating rink
still open around the corner somewhere. This is very much old van roller
skating rink era thump, which – to me – is very much what that sound is
sounding like. It’s like the more funk edge of G-funk, thicker
Bootsy-influence, little less Bernie Worrell.) My favorite two Vince Staples
songs to this day are “Blue Suede” and “Screen Door”, so I ain’t gonna act like
this ain’t great. Honestly only thing that could make it better is it ended so
fast (and also, I don’t know, that last song about loving shit didn’t really
fit, but I guess he was adjusting to his wide-angled vision; I sometimes feel
like that happens with last songs because their style is morphing, and it’s
almost better to just chop it off and never show that style yet rather than
confuse what’s already been pretty clear with the current thing). THREE STARS
(***) but would’ve been four if it went longer.

Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2

(released October 24, 2014; #1 on 2014 Pitchfork Albums of
the Year list)

Judging by my iTunes data, I’ve listened to this RTJ way
more than the first, although my eldest offspring might be fucking up the data
(by adding to it), so not sure. One should never trust data anyways. Data is
like nerd bible – they use it to prove all the stupid shit they want to prove,
and you can always find the right data to prove your dumb stupid nerd shit.
They got data suggesting it makes perfect sense to have robot clouds sucking
pollution up and this will solve our climate change, just have a bunch of robot
clouds everywhere, but c’mon, robot clouds are a doomed idea… any thinking
creature using an organic thought process could see that. Anyways, this RTJ2 (as
it is popularly shortened to inside the internet, though maybe the more
grammatically correct fuck-up of the title would be RtJ2) is great enough with
plenty of Mike domineering that I don’t get too upset that El-P is tagged in
too long. And just as he’s starting to get on my fucking nerves, he delivers
the hot tag to Mike, and shit levels off. But they’ve held the Internet Rap Tag
Team titles too many times for the past few years, getting bored with the
combo, might be time to break them up, book some new teams working towards
future Rapplemanias. I’d put Killer Mike with the Alchemist, at least for one
title run, and I don’t know, send El-P down to developmental because those
people love indy style shit. THREE STARS (***)! (This album is another reminder
to put that women’s all-time strap on Gangsta Boo, by the way.)

Azealia Banks – Broke With Expensive Taste

(released November 6, 2014; #25 on 2014 Pitchfork Albums of
the Year list)

Most of my Azealia Banks exposure has been to her being a
crazy fucker on social media. This was the first time I really peeped her
music. It’s very country. I don’t mean like earthy, or dirty southern as in
better Erykah Badu work. I mean it’s more like pablum manufactured crap modern
country than pablum manufactured crap rap music, shockingly so. Her rhythms and
the boring ass “I’m a 36-year-old white guy who lacks spirit” drum backbone was
painful. This is straight up Wal-Mart redneck music, which is not real redneck
at all, but pre-fabbed corporate identity redneck, which somehow also is what
real redneck means nowadays. False world has been super-imposed over the true
one, and that’s how shit like Azealia Banks flourishes. We’re fucked y’all. ONE
STAR (*) but even that star is impossible to see because it is hailing and
likely to fuck up your squash plants which just started to flower, so the
shittiest one star possible.

THE WINNER: Run the Jewels over Vince Staples, just because
they go longer, and if we are doing star-ratings to appreciate in false
scientific ways the beauty of arts that are actually just commodity, we’re
supposed to pretend that more is better. This helps encourage our unchecked
consumerism and creates cultural hoarders of us all and yeah, we truly are
fucked.

starting points

What It Do

Low art formed in low places by a real dude. Bread words on the bedazzling bedeviled internet machines. For flesh and blood contact, or exchanges of treasure or tribute): RAVEN MACK PO BOX 270 SCOTTSVILLE, VA 24590. For 1s and 0s robot contact (or exchanges of virus and vinegraic piss): ravenmack at gmail dot com. Paypal support can be thrown at that email address too if you got it like that.

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